“Hallo, M. Poirot,” and added rather self-consciously, “Been showing Mrs. Chantry the Crusaders’ walls. Marjorie didn’t feel up to going.”
Poirot’s eyebrows rose slightly, but even had he wished he would have had no time to make a comment for Valentine Chantry came sweeping out, crying in her high voice:
“Douglas—a pink gin—positively I must have a pink gin.”
Douglas Gold went off to order the drink. Valentine sank into a chair by Poirot. She was looking radiant this morning.
She saw her husband and Pamela coming up towards them and waved a hand, crying out:
“Have a nice bathe, Tony darling? Isn’t it a divine morning?”
Commander Chantry did not answer. He swung up the steps, passed her without a word or a look and vanished into
the bar.
His hands were clenched by his sides and that faint likeness to a gorilla was accentuated.
Valentine Chantry’s perfect but rather foolish mouth fell open.
She said, “Oh,” rather blankly.
Pamela Lyall’s face expressed keen enjoyment of the situation. Masking it as far as was possible to one of her ingenuous disposition she sat down by Valentine Chantry and inquired:
“Have you had a nice morning?”
As Valentine began, “Simply marvellous. We—” Poirot got up and in his turn strolled gently towards the bar. He found young Gold waiting for the pink gin with a flushed face. He looked disturbed and angry.
He said to Poirot, “That man’s a brute!” And he nodded his head in the direction of the retreating figure of Commander Chantry.
“It is possible,” said Poirot. “Yes, it is quite possible. But les femmes, they like brutes, remember that!”
Douglas muttered:
“I shouldn’t be surprised if he ill-treats her!”
“She probably likes that too.”
Douglas Gold looked at him in a puzzled way, took up the pink gin and went out with it.
Hercule Poirot sat on a stool and ordered a sirop de cassis. Whilst he was sipping it with long sighs of enjoyment, Chantry came in and drank several pink gins in rapid succession.
He said suddenly and violently to the world at large rather than to Poirot:
“If Valentine thinks she can get rid of me like she’s got rid of a lot of other damned fools, she’s mistaken! I’ve got her and I mean to keep her. No other fellow’s going to get her except over my dead body.”
He flung down some money, turned on his heel and went out.
Three
It was three days later that Hercule Poirot went to the Mount of the Prophet. It was a cool, agreeable drive through the golden green fir trees, winding higher and higher, far above the petty wrangling and squabbling of human beings. The car stopped at the restaurant. Poirot got out and wandered into the woods. He came out at last on a spot that seemed truly on top of the world. Far below, deeply and dazzlingly blue, was the sea.
Here at last he was at peace—removed from cares—above the world. Carefully placing his folded overcoat on a tree stump, Hercule Poirot sat down.
“Doubtless le bon Dieu knows what he does. But it is odd that he should hav
e permitted himself to fashion certain human beings. Eh bien, here for a while at least I am away from these vexing problems.” Thus he mused.
He looked up with a start. A little woman in a brown coat and skirt was hurrying towards him. It was Marjorie Gold and this time she had abandoned all pretence. Her face was wet with